ORSON — the celebrity mutt

You’d think it would be the poodle, but the most popular dog in Paris, and much of France, is the Jack Russel terrier. WOW! Can you say 1200Euros cause that’s what one will run you. Dogs, like shoes, go in an out of fashion and when I was asked to do a story about dogs in Paris I immediately thought of – I don’t know – something to do with poodles – skirts, grooming whatever. But poodles, or “canish” as the breed is known in French, has gone the way of tail fins and convertibles. Going on the internet the only breeder I could find within reasonable distance was almost three hours from Paris. They were once bred as proud hunting dogs about the size of retrievers.
Other stats — there are roughly 17 dogs for every 100 people in France, one of the highest ratios in the world, and an unofficial count – since nobody bothers to do it officially* puts the French pooch population at about 10 million — 500,000 of them in Paris alone. That number could probably be verified by counting the number of “Parisian landmines” ie – doggie calling cards left on the glorious boulevards and quaint little side streets. Supposedly the French spend some â‚¬3 billion on their dogs every year.
(French women, apropos of frivolity, spend more per capita on lingerie than women in any other country in the world. See )
*There IS a law that any dog born after January 1999 must be given an ID number either tattooed on the skin or as a micro-chip. Don’t count on that either.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 12th, 2011 at 5:28 am. It is filed under MY PORTFOLIO.
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sorry for the lonnnnnnnng delay, Janelle. I’m not terribly good at running a website. I’d love a shot of Orson’s wanted poster. You know he was found? Stephen, his owner, put the word out among the clochards – the bums – and one of them found him wandering around near St Michel. It’s a Disney movie
Thanks
David